A neighbor of Mr. Luís, an elderly man who was left “with nothing” following the fire that affected Fornos de Algodres in the Guarda district, initiated a fundraising campaign to assist him. By 7:40 PM on Thursday, more than 59,000 euros had been raised.
The GoFundMe page was created by a woman identified as Júlia, who has “a house in the village where Mr. Luís lived for many years, Casal do Monte.” The funds are intended for Amandina Neves, the octogenarian’s daughter.
“This morning, Wednesday, August 13, 2025, we were awakened at dawn with the fire rapidly advancing through the mountains. The house where Mr. Luís lived is right in the middle of the top of Serra do Pisco, completely surrounded by greenery, [and] had to be evacuated immediately, but it was not possible to prevent the loss. Everything burned,” reads the page.
The neighbor explains that, “fortunately, Mr. Luís is out of danger, but he lost all his possessions, left only with the clothes on his back.”
By 7:30 PM on Thursday, nearly 60,000 euros had been raised through about 3,600 donations via the GoFundMe page.
Mr. Luís’s story, a former forest ranger, was reported by SIC Notícias. In statements to the television station, the octogenarian recounted that “everything burned, nothing was left.”
“I was left with nothing, I only have what I’m wearing”, he said.
He also shared that before the flames reached his residence, he was alerted by firefighters and the National Republican Guard, who told him “he had to leave.”
“I don’t even know what I’m going to do. I don’t know what to do,” he lamented.
A former forest ranger who saw the home he had lived in for “years” burn said only a “generator” was left from his house. “I was left with nothing, only what I have on me,” explained the man, currently 80 years old.
Notícias ao Minuto | 20:48 – 13/08/2025
This morning, the Fornos de Algodres City Council and the municipal Social Action service visited the site and contacted the elderly man, providing him with clothing.
“We brought clothes, as it was his priority since he was left with nothing. We also assessed other needs, but the man only requested that we rehabilitate his daughter’s house, where he was taken in,” declared Alexandre Lote, vice-president of the municipality, to the Lusa agency.
The municipality committed to carry out the necessary work on the referred residence, he added.
The European Forest Fire Information System, based on satellite images from the European Copernicus program, reported that the area burned in this fire, which started in Trancoso and spread to the counties of Fornos de Algodres, Aguiar da Beira, and Celorico da Beira, totaled 13,741 hectares by Wednesday.
The Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF) also revealed that since January 1, 75,000 hectares have burned in mainland Portugal, more than half of which in the last three weeks.
The area burned this year is nine times more than in the same period last year and the second largest since 2017.
Portugal is under alert due to fire risk since August 2. On Thursday, the Minister of Internal Administration, Maria Lúcia Amaral, announced that the Government decided to extend the measure until August 17.
